Chapter 468 - 410: Mai Mingle: The First Answer

Chapter 468: Chapter 410: Mai Mingle: The First Answer

"Stay where you are. Don’t come any closer."

Jin Xueli froze at her words. She shivered twice in the rain before asking Mai Mingle, "...What’s wrong? She saved me once..."

"I know,"

Mai Mingle softened her tone, her peripheral vision still fixed on Brianna on the road. She spoke as if coaxing a child, "Just wait a moment. Come over after we’re done talking, okay?"

Jin Xueli’s face and lips were blue from the cold. She glanced at Brianna, hesitated for a moment, and finally sat back down in the car, leaving the door open.

When Mai Mingle turned back to face her, Brianna had already pushed herself up from the ground.

She had no feet; they had been cast off to some unknown corner of the world. So Brianna propped herself up with her arms, standing silently in the black rain. On her pale, ashen face, her hair streamed down like trails of blood.

The two locked eyes for a few seconds—Mai Mingle fought the urge to turn and grab a machine gun from the car.

Even if Brianna wasn’t a full-blown resident yet, she was probably close.

Just meeting her gaze felt like fishing line was being wrapped around and around inside Mai Mingle’s head. The longer it went on, the tighter the line pulled, threatening to shred the soft, gray matter in her skull.

Mai Mingle couldn’t help but lower her eyes, taking two sharp breaths to suppress the dizzying palpitations in her chest.

"Come a little closer,"

Brianna suddenly smiled, a black, gaping curve splitting her face. "Why are you standing so far back? Didn’t you want to talk? Why did you make Jin Xueli hide from me? What did you think I would do to her? Tell me. I’m curious. After seeing me like this, what did you think I would do to Jin Xueli?"

"No... that’s not it."

When Mai Mingle spoke now, her tongue felt a little unruly, as if a hand that had been tightly gripping the speech center of her brain had just let go. "It’s not because of how you look that I told Jin Xueli to stay away."

Brianna maintained her black, gaping smile, standing motionless and silent in the black rain. It was like a frozen frame from a horror movie.

"I don’t know why, but I can feel that she seems to cause you... a lot of pain." Mai Mingle lowered her voice so Jin Xueli couldn’t hear from the car. "I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to bear the pain and might lash out... so I hoped she would back away for a bit, to give you some time to recover."

She was prepared for even these gentle, calm words to send the resident into a frenzy. Judging by Brianna’s earlier state, nothing she did, no matter how insane, would be surprising.

However, to Mai Mingle’s surprise, Brianna only let out a sluggish, almost numb sound through her nose.

It was an ambiguous sound, perhaps even meaningless.

Like someone covered in wounds, who, upon being cut again, no longer had the strength to struggle or cry out in pain, and could only manage a low grunt.

Mai Mingle had always been perceptive of others, but this was the first time she had ever felt a sense of empathy for a resident.

"Brianna?" Mai Mingle asked softly. "Can you talk to me now?"

Brianna made no effort to hide her intentions.

She ignored the question, first turning her head to look at the car. Mai Mingle had placed both machine guns on the seat, their frames visible through the passenger-side window.

Then, Brianna’s eyes measured the distance between the machine guns and Jin Xueli, the distance to Mai Mingle, and her own distance from the car. What she was thinking was obvious.

’So... is Jin Xueli the source of her pain?’

Mai Mingle couldn’t help but wonder. From Jin Xueli’s account, the two had only met once. Brianna was already a resident then, and she had saved Jin Xueli. No matter how you looked at it, it just didn’t make sense.

"Fine. What do you want to talk about?"

Brianna licked her lips. Her tongue was a deathly gray-white, there and gone in a flash. "There’s nothing in what you’ve said that I don’t already know. What else do you have to say to me?"

She must have realized that if she attacked first, she could, at best, only kill Mai Mingle.

Mai Mingle’s death would alert Jin Xueli. Startled, she would have countless opportunities to escape, whether by grabbing a gun or driving away.

"Can you tell me what happened tonight?" Mai Mingle asked as gently as she could.

She didn’t want to use a harsh tone with someone drowning in pain. She didn’t dare walk up and take Brianna’s hand; she could only imagine her own voice as a hand, tucking Brianna’s hair behind her ear.

Brianna glanced at her. After a moment of stunned silence, suspicion and wariness surfaced in her eyes.

"If you’re going to talk, then talk. Cut the fake, sappy tone. Try it again and I’ll slap your mouth right off your face. Let’s see you be fake then."

Mai Mingle sighed inwardly but didn’t react.

Brianna seemed a little uncomfortable. She shifted back and forth, adjusting her position. She was silent for a long while before suddenly bursting into laughter, as if she had given up all hope.

"The Host used me, did you know that? The Black Abyss Belt, do you know about it? It used every trick in the book—no, maybe fate used every trick in the book—to send me step by step into the Black Abyss Belt. Then the Host led me out, step by step, and brought me into the human world."

She raised an arm, gesturing toward the endlessly long body stretching out behind her.

"See this? See this body of mine? I’m so gifted, so unique, so rare, so damn amazing! I’ve stitched the human world and the Nest together! The Nest has come into the human world! You see it, don’t you? You see it, don’t you? She sees it too, she sees it too, and soon everyone in the human world is going to see it when the sun rises when the rain stops the whole world is going to see me see me see me see me!"

The moment the wave of sound hit Mai Mingle, she wanted to turn and run, to fire shot after shot at Brianna, and yet, she also wanted to hold her tightly in her arms.

"Do you know what I wanted to do at first?" Brianna laughed and shouted and screamed without pause. "At first I wanted to walk back I wanted to walk back into the human world on two feet two woman’s feet I wanted to erase what happened I wanted to go back I didn’t want to be seen"

By the time Brianna finally stopped, panting heavily, Mai Mingle realized that she had, at some point, been knocked to the ground by the force of it all.

"Go find the Host," Brianna said, her breathing heavy and deep, though she seemed to have finally calmed down a little. "I told you, the Host went to find Chaisi Monroe. You go find Chaisi Monroe, and you’ll catch the Host. Have you heard enough now? Get lost."

"...What I need to do is more than just find the Host."

Mai Mingle stared at her blankly and said in a low voice, "You said it yourself, the Nest is already here, isn’t it? It’s too late to just find him. What’s done is done."

"Then were you just wasting all this time trying to be cute with me?"

"No... I mean, if we want to reverse the situation and undo all the damage, there’s only one way."

Mai Mingle looked at her, unsure how to sound any more sincere. "’The Nest Dominance Game’ might have been twisted and manipulated by the Host, but its fundamental nature hasn’t changed. You’re at least half-resident, so you should know this too. The ’Nest Dominance Game’ is a natural disaster within the Nest. As long as someone wins, they can use the Nest’s power to do anything."

Brianna had already guessed what she was going to say. She covered her face with one hand, bent over, and laughed so hard her shoulders shook. The sheer exaggeration of her emotion was entirely that of a resident.

"So after all that high-and-mighty talk, this was your plan all along! Are you trying to say that if all the contestants gather their Target Illusions, preferably by giving them to you, and collectively choose you as the winner, you’ll close the Nest and the human world will be safe? That everything will go back to normal?"

Mai Mingle looked at her steadily and said, "Yes."

Brianna laughed for another half a minute, until her expression suddenly collapsed, leaving her face a long, blank expanse of white.

"How many Target Illusions do you have?" she asked, almost calmly.

"Not a single one," Mai Mingle said honestly.

She expected to be mocked, but Brianna’s expression didn’t change, as if she wasn’t surprised at all.

"Then why don’t you go tell the other contestants to gather all the Target Illusions and give them to me? I have at least two already. Why don’t you go find some Target Illusions and give them to me yourself?"

"Because I don’t know the others," Mai Mingle said, remaining as honest as possible. "But I know for sure that if everything is in my hands, I will definitely save the human world and banish the Nest."

Brianna just scoffed.

"So high and mighty with your words, but you’re actually quite clever," she said slowly. "But you’re right... you really don’t know me. Why should I save the human world?"

She looked so young. She must still have parents and family in the human world. Even if just for them, she should— The words reached Mai Mingle’s lips, but she forced them back down.

’I have a feeling I shouldn’t say that...’

That left only one reason.

The only, true reason—and one that perhaps no one but Mai Mingle would ever accept.

"Because the people in Blackmoor City... they’re all individuals," Mai Mingle said in a low voice. "They’re born, they have troubles, hopes, attachments, dreams... They’re all living, breathing people. So, why wouldn’t you save them?"

Brianna stared at her, motionless, as if she were about to crawl out of those black-hole eyes, climb up Mai Mingle’s face, and burrow into her mind through her eye sockets.

"Why?" she murmured. "You’re asking me why I won’t save the human world?"

Mai Mingle said nothing.

"Well, thank you so much."

Brianna said softly, the rain sliding endlessly down her face as if it would never stop. "It’s only in this moment that I’ve finally understood my answer to that question. Why not save the human world? The answer was so simple. It was right in front of my eyes the whole time, but I couldn’t see it before.

"If struggling only makes me sink deeper, then let this whole world come down and keep me company."